


Introduction to Goa'uld Theology

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, Monks, Oral History, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 15:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1352692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With all these gods around, there must be some theologians somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Introduction to Goa'uld Theology

**Author's Note:**

> For Hive, who requested Jack and Daniel and SG-1 fic, with thanks for your donation to fandomaid!
> 
> Thanks to templemarker for beta, and to everyone who helped this along.

It was, Jack thought, a pretty nice cell, as cells went. It had a couple of windows. They were high up and barred, but they let in some sunlight and fresh air, even some chirping bird sounds around dawn. 

It was comparatively spacious, too, with enough room for him and Daniel to each lie down along one of the walls--feet toward the door, heads toward the windows--with an arm's length of breathing room between them. They didn't actually lie down at the same time, switching off to keep watch throughout the evening and night and morning, but it was good to each have their own space. There was just about nobody Jack would rather spend sixteen hours in a cell with, but even so, a little personal space made it easier.

Teal'c would probably be the ideal cellmate. Teal'c wouldn't have needed to talk his way through the occasional burst of panic by speculating at length about the meaning of those ruins that they had, it seemed, blasphemously trespassed in yesterday afternoon. But if Teal'c were in here with Jack that would leave it to Daniel and Carter to coordinate a rescue from outside. Jack was sure they could get the job done if they had to, but it was a little easier to trust Teal'c to manage the rescue with Carter.

Assuming, of course, that the locals hadn't backtracked from the ruins to the site of the strange energy readings where Carter was setting up an observation station while Teal'c watched her back. Assuming that the locals hadn't gotten them first and then tracked Jack and Daniel to the ruins. Assuming Carter and Teal'c hadn't traipsed into this town looking for them and run afoul of their captors. Assuming--

Jack swallowed down the endless grim speculations and made himself focus on the positives. It was a nice cell. The company could be worse. And since no power on Earth or any other world could stop Daniel from crawling all over interesting ruins taking pictures and sounding out the local alphabet, Jack was glad that he'd gone along to babysit. He was glad that he was here to listen to Daniel speculate about vowel shifts and ceremonial functions while they waited for the cavalry to come.

Daniel was lying down with his eyes closed, not sleeping, when Jack heard heavy footsteps coming toward their door. They hadn't had any visitors--no food, no water, not even ominously vague monologues about their fate--since they were shoved inside the day before. They'd had to give up all their gear, right down to boots and belts and Daniel's damn _glasses_ , and all they'd gotten in exchange was some yelling about blaspheming and trespassing on sacred ground which Daniel, being Daniel, had tried to explain and apologize for. No one had said a word about what exactly the _penalty_ for blasphemous trespass was, but Jack had a feeling they were about to find out.

He stood up. Daniel followed a beat behind, falling back a half-step when Jack planted himself squarely in front of the door.

It swung open to show a pair of Jaffa. The one slightly further from the door said, "Come," and made a persuasive gesture with his staff weapon.

"Sure," Jack said, because there wasn't much else to say when you were standing barefoot in a cell in your unbelted fatigues and the guy in front of you was a Jaffa with a staff weapon. "Happy to join you, I was starting to think no one was ever going to ask us out. Where we headed?"

"To a place where you will learn to respect the gods," the Jaffa intoned, and Jack couldn't help glancing over at Daniel to share a look of resignation. Oh, _hell_.

* * *

Jack kept talking as much as he dared while they were led out of the little jailhouse and through the town to the road that led to the gate. Hopefully Carter and Teal'c were somewhere nearby watching; failing that, hopefully someone would remember the chatty guy when Carter and Teal'c and the backup they'd gone for came looking. At least Carter and Teal'c weren't being marched out with them; that tipped the odds toward them having gotten away clean. 

Daniel stayed mostly quiet, speaking up when Jack prodded him with a question, but otherwise just watching, his eyes darting back and forth between the Jaffa. They looked pretty much like any other Jaffa, tan-skinned with shaved heads and dark eyes, an unfamiliar sigil inked black on their foreheads. Daniel might have been able to identify it at a glance if he had his glasses, but no one had returned their gear and Jack knew from experience that his attempts to describe squiggly things arranged in relation to other squiggly things mostly just made Daniel growl and snatch books out of his hands.

There was a crowd waiting for them at the gate, including a tall, slender Goa'uld who Jack couldn't peg for sure as male or female--the glowing eyes and golden ribbon device on one hand were really all he needed to know. 

"These were trying to read the forbidden inscriptions?" the Goa'uld demanded, and the first prime standing at his-or-her elbow said, "Yes, high one," which was no help at all.

"Very well," the Goa'uld said. "They will make a suitable gift, then."

That sounded even more ominous than learning to respect the gods, but there was no time to do anything about it. The gate connected and the Jaffa prodded them into line, following the Goa'uld and the rest of the Jaffa escort through the gate.

They came out into torchlit dusk. Jack got the impression that they were inside some kind of walled compound. The ground they followed the Goa'uld down onto was smoothly stone-paved, a relief after the dirt road. Jack didn't take in much more about their surroundings, though, because there was a double line of kneeling figures in robes flanking their path, chanting out some kind of song about how great someone named Neritu was. From the smugly pleased look on the Goa'uld's face Jack was guessing she--that was one good thing about the chanting, it included a pronoun along with the slimy lies about _her generosity is without equal, her ferocity is beyond measure_ \--was the Neritu in question.

Daniel stepped in until they stood shoulder-to-shoulder. Jack took a longer look around, noting the amount of open ground between them and the walls that were too high to easily climb. There were a number of buildings--none higher than two stories, mostly made of stone, neat and square-edged. There was something vaguely familiar about the layout, and when Jack looked over he thought Daniel had an idea about what was going on here. His squinting gaze darted from the buildings to the chanting hooded figures and back. His lips were moving like he was about to start chanting along. 

Jack made himself pay attention for a few bars--it was still all about Neritu, although it was now a story about some great deed Neritu had performed and also Neritu was a _he_ in this part of the song--and then decided to leave that to Daniel. Some more people came toward them out of the buildings, hurrying but not quite running. 

The new guys were in robes, too, although they had their hoods pushed back. Leading the way was a spry old guy, bald as the Jaffa with dark brown skin, and he walked right up to Neritu and bowed to her. 

Neritu gave a benevolent smile and tugged the man up out of his bow by the arms. She spoke a few words, inaudible under the chanting, and gestured back toward Jack and Daniel. The old guy nodded and looked back over his shoulder, and a couple of subordinate robed guys--one who looked like a teenager and one guy about Jack's age with a badly scarred face--came over to them. 

"I am Brother Joban," the scarred guy said. "This is Brother Akileo. You will come with us now. We'll get you settled."

Brother Joban and Brother Akileo seemed like a trade up from the Jaffa who'd escorted them this far, even if their boss appeared to be dangerously friendly with Neritu. It wasn't like they ahd a choice anyway, so Jack nodded and followed them down the aisle of kneeling, chanting figures, past the Goa'uld and her human buddy, who were peeling off toward one of the nearer buildings. 

Joban led them through an arched doorway into a little grassy square with buildings on every side. They turned and walked along the edge of the square to the next corner and then ducked through a door, into a well-lit low-ceilinged room with some benches and a fireplace and a mat covering the floor that felt better than cold stone under Jack's feet.

Akileo heaved a sigh as the door shut, which Jack noticed mostly because he was forcing himself not to be obvious about doing the same. The sound of the chanting had been muffled once they came through the archway, but it vanished completely when the door closed behind them. 

Jack's eyes darted to Joban to see whether he would take any notice of Akileo, but Joban was smiling. "That's better, isn't it? The song of praise is for the benefit of the god, but no one else should have to listen to it when they aren't on choir duty."

Jack raised his eyebrows. Daniel, who'd had his mouth open to speak, stopped short at that, his squint of concentration turning into a frown. 

Jack stepped into the gap. "Hey, we didn't get to introduce ourselves before. I'm Jack O'Neill, this is Daniel Jackson."

Joban nodded. "Is all of this your personal name, or does part of it designate your family?"

Jack glanced sideways at Daniel, not quite sure he wanted to answer that, but Daniel said unhesitatingly, "Daniel is my personal name. Jack is his."

Joban nodded. "We surrender our family names when we enter the cloister. We devote ourselves to the brotherhood and to learning."

"And to the gods," Daniel said, not quite a question, although he had that look on his face like he was feeling his way across a dark room. Diplomatic stuff, for what good that would do them now.

"As you see," Joban said, tilting his head back in the direction of the courtyard with the gate and the kneeling choir. 

And that... wasn't yes, and wasn't no. And if humans could figure out how to get Goa'uld to act like they were friends and want to bring them _suitable gifts_ , who could blame them?

"This is a monastery?" Daniel asked. 

Joban frowned a little, like the word wasn't coming through quite right. "A place set apart," he said. "To study the ways of the gods and to pass on our learning to our younger brothers."

"And we are...?" Jack asked, because _where you will learn to respect the gods_ was suddenly taking on a surprisingly benign meaning, which had to mean there was a catch here somewhere. 

"Our youngest brothers," Joban said, and then flashed a smile. "In terms of your time here only, of course. But I promise, we are not such harsh older brothers as you may have had before."

"Only child," Jack said, and realized he was speaking in unison with Daniel. He glanced Daniel's way, his mouth tilting in a fraction of a smile, to find Daniel giving him a wryly fond look.

"Mm," Joban said, sounding thoughtful. "And yet--you seem already to share some bond yourselves, though you are new to being brothers?"

Joban didn't sound displeased about the possibility, and Jack wasn't going to give them any reason to think they were going to allow themselves to separated, so he said immediately, "Yes. We're very close."

"Basically inseparable," Daniel agreed. "We were brought together because Jack wouldn't let me go exploring alone."

"That is often the way," Joban said, still sounding not at all surprised or displeased. "In that case--perhaps not the dormitory for you. But first, Akileo, fetch some bread."

Akileo nodded and went out through a different door than they'd come in through--Jack mentally mapped the kitchen somewhere in that direction. Joban went to a table that held wooden cups and a pitcher and poured them each a cup. Jack took it quickly, suddenly deeply aware that he'd spent a night and day and morning in a cell with no water or food, and he drained half of it before he registered that it wasn't water. 

He came up blinking, and Daniel said a little hoarsely, "Wine?"

"With plenty of water," Joban said, smiling slightly. "But yes, it is one of our everyday vintages. Do you like it?"

"Very good," Jack said, and sipped the rest a little slower. Akileo came back with a little stack of soft flat bread like pitas on a plate, and Jack and Daniel sat down on a bench and shared them, letting Joban refill each of their cups once. He and Akileo sat down on a different bench and waited in patient silence. Looking around, Jack saw that there were little abandoned objects on some of the benches, stuff that looked like knitting and sewing and a few bits of woodcarving; everybody had been rousted from here to meet the guests, clearly. No one came back while they were sitting there, although Jack heard footsteps passing a few times, both outside and in. No one seemed to be hurrying anywhere, and he never heard other voices.

When they were done Jack didn't feel drunk, just full-bellied and warm and tired. He was on his third planet within twenty-four hours and had changed clocks radically both times, which meant he was going to be gate-lagged to hell for the next day or two.

"Come," Joban said. "You will need rest. Tomorrow you will begin your studies. Your room is this way."

Joban pointed out the doors that led to the latrines and, as Jack had already deduced, the kitchens. He led them through a third door. They stepped into a dimmer hallway, and Joban led them a little way down it to a narrow staircase and another dim hallway, this one with doors on either side. He led them all the way to the end and opened a door, and Jack barked out an involuntary laugh when he saw what was on the other side: a narrow room with a high, barred window, just about wide enough for two people to lie down side by side.

There was a low bed taking up virtually the whole little cell beyond the first few feet, with a shelf along the wall over the head of it. Joban reached into the room and took down a lantern from a hook by the door and passed it over to Akileo, who walked back to the last lantern hanging in the hallway to light it. Akileo gave the lantern to Daniel, and Joban stepped back from the door. 

"There are clothes for you both inside," Joban said. "Someone will come for you at dawn; we begin our day early. Be dressed by then."

Jack could have sworn that his kindly smile turned into a bit of a smirk at the end there, but he gestured them into the cell, and Jack stepped inside far enough for Daniel to follow.

Daniel hung the lantern back on its hook by the door and shut the door behind them. It latched from the inside, which was a little bit of comfort, although it was nothing you couldn't open from the other side with a butter knife. Still, better than nothing, and a vast improvement on the cell they'd been in half an hour ago.

There were robes hanging on the opposite side of the door from the lantern, and two stacks of folded cloth on the shelf over the head of the bed. Jack didn't like the thought of putting those clothes on, but....

"We could be here a while," Daniel said, leaning against the wall by the door. 

Jack nodded and sat down on the foot of the bed. "Even if Carter and Teal'c manage to figure out where we went, including the gate address, they can't come busting in here to break us out without doing a little recon."

"And I'd bet there are monks constantly stationed around the gate--choir duty, like Joban said," Daniel pointed out. "They might be there mostly to sing, but I don't think we're going to get past--what, twelve of them?"

"Sixteen," Jack corrected. "There were two right at the DHD and two on the other side of the gate." Jack considered the layout again. High walls, clear sightlines, men everywhere. At least one god visiting pretty regularly. "We'll figure something out. It'll just take some planning."

Daniel nodded, and then his gaze skipped past Jack to the bed they were evidently going to be sharing. "Do we, uh, take watches?"

Jack shook his head. "I think we're safe enough here, for now. We've gotta sleep and we've gotta fit in as well as we can here for the time being."

Daniel looked like he wanted to say something about that, but he just nodded, turned and blew out the flame in the lantern. Jack tugged back the blanket on the bed and crawled up to take the left side, and a moment later Daniel followed, settling down on the right. Some light filtered in from the window, and the faint distant sound of chanting, but Jack didn't hear it for long before he fell asleep.

* * *

Jack woke up to find a cool white light illuminating the room. He pushed up on one elbow, twisting to see out the window and confirm that there was a moon in the sky casting that glow. He could hear chanting faintly, and he wondered if Neritu was leaving, or if the choir had to keep that up constantly. Then he heard the whoosh of a wormhole forming, and Daniel startled awake next to him. 

"What," Daniel said, pushing himself up to mirror Jack's half-sitting position, "Jack, what--"

"Easy, Daniel," Jack said, putting a hand to his chest to push him gently back down to the mattress. "Nothing. I think Neritu's heading out."

Just as he said it the distant chanting ended, and there was a weirdly complete silence. Jack realized he could hear Daniel breathing, and a second later he realized he still had his hand on Daniel's chest and jerked it back.

Daniel exhaled and shifted toward his side of the bed. Jack looked away, fussing with the blanket as he lay down again himself. The moon outside was pretty near full and high in the sky, which meant they were pretty close to midnight, one way or another, with hours to go yet before they needed to be up. Damn gate-lag.

"So, uh," Daniel said, sounding wide awake. "You realize they think we're."

"Yes," Jack said. "I noticed that when they gave us a bed to share, Daniel."

"Clearly no taboo there," Daniel said, like it was of strictly anthropological interest. "Do you think they're devoted only to Neritu, here? I mean, they seem to have some kind of client relationship with her, but I'm not actually sure who's the client and who's the patron."

"You noticed that, huh?"

"A Goa'uld giving gifts to humans? Yeah, this is weird. I'm just wondering what we should say about what god or gods we--"

Daniel raised a hand, waving vaguely.

"Killed?" Jack offered, smiling slightly. "It is getting to be kind of a long list."

"Let's not lead with that," Daniel said, although he sounded pretty amused. "I guess we could claim to come from a world ruled by Apophis?"

Jack smacked his shoulder. "Bite your _tongue_ , Daniel. If we belong to anybody it's the Asgard. Throw Thor at 'em, see what they make of that."

"Huh," Daniel said. "That could actually be interesting, to see how wide their knowledge is--I mean, they said they study here, and most human cultures we've encountered really don't have a scholarly tradition. This monastery has clearly been established for centuries--did you notice the wear patterns in the stairs?--and they may have accumulated a significant depth of knowledge--"

Daniel was on a roll, and Jack closed his eyes and listened to Daniel enthusing about alien historiography until he fell asleep again.

* * *

The next time Jack woke up their cell was lit with the monochrome glow of false dawn, and Daniel was curled up against his back, forehead pressed against Jack's shoulder, knees nudging the backs of his thighs. Jack closed his eyes again after a quick sweeping glance--door still latched, nothing disturbed--and exhaled a long breath. It felt good, having someone close, sharing the warmth of two bodies under the covers. It had been a long damn time since he'd woken up like this, and if they were stuck here long enough this could get really complicated. For now it wasn't bad--this was cozy and plausibly deniable. After all, if anything called for giving up on maintaining personal space it was being trapped somewhere indefinitely.

Yeah, this could be all right. As long as they got out of here before anybody's hands started wandering. Jack wouldn't even bet himself on which one of them would start first, if it happened.

Daniel made a little half-awake noise and squirmed, and Jack figured he could at least head off _today's_ possible awkwardness. He threw the blanket back and scooted to the foot of the bed, calling out a cheerful, "Rise and shine, Brother Daniel."

Daniel moaned miserably into the blanket, one hand groping along the shelf for glasses he wasn't going to find; his hand jerked and went still when he encountered the folded cloth of their new clothes. 

"Yeah, toss me mine, would you?" Jack said, skinning out of his t-shirt. 

Daniel muttered, "I _just_ fell asleep," but he pushed up far enough to grab the clothes from Jack's side of the shelf and toss them to the foot of the bed. Jack took down a robe and dropped it over Daniel's feet. Daniel grumbled a little more, but they were both dressed in their new clothes--gray drawstring pants, gray tunics, brown robes--when someone knocked at the door. 

Akileo was in the hallway when they opened up, looking not much more pleased to be awake than Daniel was, although his hair was clipped short enough that it wasn't getting away from him like Daniel's was. Akileo tilted his head and led off, and Jack ushered Daniel out ahead of him, taking a second to smooth down Daniel's hair as they went. 

They went down through the room they'd been in before, outside and back in by another door which led to a dining hall. There were two long tables with benches on either side, and robed men settling in to eat while others ran around setting out pitchers and pots and baskets of the same flat bread they'd eaten last night. No one was speaking, and Akileo didn't say a word as he directed Jack and Daniel to sit down opposite each other. Breakfast turned out to be oatmeal, which wasn't so bad sweetened with the little jars of jam and honey that got passed around, plus flat bread and a slightly minty hot tea that had a promising bitter aftertaste. 

They also gained a soundtrack a couple of minutes after everyone started eating. A monk who looked to be a little older than Akileo called out in a clear, ringing voice, "Listen now to the deeds of the god Pelops."

Jack raised his eyebrows--he'd experienced enough of the deeds of Pelops firsthand to want to know what else he'd been up to. The young monk started into a story, more chanting than singing, and while the words didn't quite rhyme they fell into a cadence; Jack could picture the monks doing a twelve-mile run and calling it back and forth as they ran. It was hardly a surprise when the entire table repeated back the first two lines. 

They went on like that, calling back and forth, and Jack started joining in under his breath, figuring out how to time his chewing so he could take a breath and do the response with everyone else. He noticed Daniel wasn't reciting, although he timed his eating with everyone else's so it wasn't too obvious. Jack kept his voice down just in case Daniel had a good reason for not joining in. He hadn't tried to indicate anything to Jack, if he did. Daniel was keeping his head down, frowning in concentration as he listened.

Jack thought it was probably quicker to memorize by reciting back, but he didn't always know what was going on in Daniel's head. Nothing about the Pelops chant sounded terrible, as long as you didn't think too hard about what it had been like for the people he'd enslaved. Jack didn't even have to say anything appalling--there was nothing in the story about how great Pelops was. It was mostly just straightforward factual details of the way Pelops had picked people up from one place and put them down in another. It got kind of involved, after a while, detailing a breeding program he had instituted among the people to study different traits, which sounded like it fit Pelops' SOP as they knew it. Jack was pretty curious about how that had turned out for the people as well as for Pelops' scientific curiosity when a bell rang.

They finished the call and response they were on, but then rather than continuing on to what was interesting about the people who were taller than five stones stacked together _and_ had green eyes, the young monk chanted out, "We hunger for knowledge as we hunger for bread," and instead of repeating it back, everyone at the tables replied, "We have been fed but we will hunger again."

Daniel looked like something tasted bad, though he drained his cup of tea before they all stood. Everyone filed out of the dining area, and Akileo motioned for them to follow. When they stepped out the door into the grassy yard between the buildings, there was the sudden unfamiliar rumble of voices. They were allowed to talk, finally.

Daniel grabbed Jack's arm in a fiercely pinching grip, and Jack let himself be steered over to an open space apart from everyone else. When Daniel let up on his grip a little Jack turned to face him, rubbing his arm and frowning.

"Jack," Daniel whispered, low and half-panicked and urgent, like he'd just found the worm in the apple and it had glowing eyes. "Jack, it's an _oral tradition_."

Jack blinked, shifting his gaze over Daniel's shoulder to be sure no one was going to overhear Daniel telling him whatever was so terrible about that. "Daniel, you've heard three songs--"

"They're not songs, they're--everything is engineered around this, it's all designed to be spoken and memorized. I'm pretty sure _you_ could recite the deeds of Pelops with a few prompts at this point."

Jack couldn't help glaring. "It's not that hard to memorize a poem, Daniel, especially not when it's _intel_."

"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying, this stuff is like Homer, it's like _Beowulf_ , structurally it is an _oral tradition_ , and--"

"Brothers," Joban said, and Daniel snapped his mouth shut, still looking kind of frantic. "Come, I am sure you're eager to begin your learning."

Jack mustered up a smile and said, "I thought we were doing okay with that lesson at breakfast."

Joban smiled. "That was jumping ahead a little. We will start you at the beginning."

Daniel made a tiny noise that Jack recognized as _furious vindication_. When he glanced over his shoulder Daniel flapped a hand at Joban like _what did I tell you?_ which would have been more informative if Daniel had actually told him anything.

"Take it easy, Daniel," Jack said. "We're new, of course we have to start at the beginning."

Daniel's mouth turned to a flat, furious line, and he didn't make a sound at all. Jack prudently focused his attention on Joban, who led them away to a third side of the yard and into a building they hadn't visited yet. It was yet another hallway with doors on either side, and once again the room they were led into was small and cell-like, though this time it held a handful of stools, and instead of bars the window held stained glass which seemed to show a story about Ra, judging by all the sunbeams. There was a pitcher and a row of wooden cups perched on the deep sill of the window, a weirdly ordinary contrast to the evidence of people around here worshiping an alien Jack and Daniel had killed.

"Please, sit," Joban said, waving them toward the stools. Jack steered Daniel by the arm to the stool closest to the window, and sat down between him and the door.

"We will begin at the beginning," Joban said, "with the lineage of the gods. Recite back to me. The father of all gods was Atok, of great and monstrous form. His son was Apep, greater and more monstrous."

This sounded plausible and possibly like useful information, so Jack recited it back, committing it to memory as he did. Daniel recited along, too, though he stared at the floor and gave everything an "I'm humoring you" intonation. Jack figured he was bound to get into it sooner or later and didn't call him on it, and they went along through the underlords of Apep--Nut, Thoth, and Ra, for starters. That was where things started getting pretty involved, with all the branching lineages that went down from each, but the recitation fell into a rhythm that helped things along. 

After they got to Pelops--a three-times great-grand-snake of Nut, as it turned out--and Jack recited back with a particularly pleased tone of things fitting into place while Daniel sighed and lagged a half-beat behind, Joban called a halt and poured them drinks from the pitcher. It was just water this time, with a little lemon and honey. Good for the throat. Daniel was right about the oral tradition, clearly, and when Jack looked over at him over the rim of his cup he could tell that Daniel knew it too. 

"Can I ask a question out of order?" Daniel asked, and Jack scooted toward him slightly, pressing his knee to Daniel's thigh, because that was his _I am not going to stop asking questions until I get the answers I want or someone shoots me and probably not even then_ tone.

"By all means, Brother," Joban said, sipping water and raising his eyebrows.

"Do you actually believe any of this? Anything you're teaching us right now?"

Joban tilted his head to one side. "Should I not believe my brothers, who have passed down what they have learned of the lineages of the gods?"

"Not the _lineages_ ," Daniel said, biting off each word. "Not--fine, yes, Atok was probably the father or the predecessor of Apep, and Apep of Nut, and Nut of Isis, Osiris, Seth, fine. But do you believe that they are _gods_?"

Joban raised his eyebrows. "I would like to see the world you come from, Brother Daniel, where you can doubt that the gods are the gods. For myself," Joban touched his cheek between two lines of scarring. "I have seen enough to know that they are gods with all the powers of gods."

"But they're not--" Daniel said, "They're _people_ , they've been taken over by a snake, a parasite--"

Joban nodded slowly. "The form of the god itself is not majestic, true. And you have learned that gods clothe themselves in the flesh of--"

" _My wife_ ," Daniel snarled, and Joban sat back sharply while Jack put a steadying hand on Daniel's chest to keep him from lunging forward.

"And her kid brother, who's also a friend of ours," Jack added, which was enough to make Daniel give him a vaguely apologetic look, like forgetting Skaara was what he'd done wrong here, and not going wildly and pointlessly off-mission while they were still deep in uncharted enemy territory. 

"I do not tell you that the gods are kind or just," Joban said softly, raising his hands. "I do not tell you that your wife was not cruelly taken. I know the cruelty of the gods as much as I know their power. But this does not change the fact that the gods are the gods."

Daniel twitched under Jack's hand, and before he was reduced to bear-hugging Daniel into stillness, Jack said, "I think what Daniel is trying to say is that we know the gods are powerful and long-lived and everything else, we just think that's a crappy reason for letting them be in charge. We think humans--and Jaffa--should be free."

Joban looked suddenly enlightened. "Ah. Then you have learned the first lesson of the brotherhood. You are quite precocious. I see you have your reasons, and I am sorry for your losses."

Jack looked over at Daniel, who was deflating from his fury, because... that was not quite the answer either of them had been expecting.

"Wait, if _all gods are bastards_ is the first lesson, what comes next?" Daniel asked. He cut a glance at Jack, then forged ahead. "Can we skip to graduate studies if we tell you we killed Ra?"

Joban's jaw dropped slightly, and then he stood and said, "I believe we should speak to my superiors."

* * *

It took another day for Joban's boss--the spry old guy, Father Marro, who wasn't so bad when he wasn't kissing up to a snake--to get in touch with Neritu and convince her that their IDCs and Daniel's glasses were also suitable gifts she could exchange for intelligence reports. 

Jack spent the day while they waited debriefing the parts of their exploits of the last few years that he figured were fair game--the death of Ra, since he and Daniel had spilled the beans there already, edited for public consumption, and the deaths of Hathor and Seth on Earth, and the basic facts about the Tau'ri that they were cleared to hand out to strnagers. Jack sat and listened while Marro went back and forth with Joban and a few other brothers, already starting to form Jack's bare-bones reports into chantable songs. 

Daniel, meanwhile, spent his time mining information from some of the other brothers, trying to track down anything of immediate strategic use against Apophis. There wasn't much; the brotherhood didn't deal much with the major system lords. What they knew about Apophis was mostly background and context, gossip about the old grudges that drove some of his actions in non-Tau'ri quarters. It was the kind of stuff that was going to give an intelligence unit all kinds of warm fuzzies but wasn't of immediate use to a team on the ground. That was what high-number SG teams were for, and Jack had a feeling they'd be sending one to camp out here for a while after Jack and Daniel debriefed at home.

When dusk fell Jack and Daniel were politely but firmly stashed back in their little room ahead of Neritu's return with their gear. Marro was going to give her the story of the death of Hathor, who had apparently been some kind of aunt to Neritu and a hated rival, but it was going to take time. They had a few hours to nap off a little more of their gate-lag before Neritu would clear out and Father Marro could send them home.

Daniel huffed impatiently when they heard the wormhole form and the distant chanting start up, and he gave a dark mutter of, " _Oral tradition_."

"Okay, seriously, what is your problem with a nice oral tradition," Jack demanded. "I thought this would be right up your alley: history, poetry, culture--"

"It's so _slow_ ," Daniel griped, covering his eyes with one arm. "Do you know how much I could read in the time it takes them to chant out a story with all the epithets and epistrophes and cute rhetorical devices?"

Jack snorted and shook his head. They'd be headed home in a few hours, and in the meantime he could get in one more nap here, warm and uncomplicated and deniable with Daniel. He reached over and patted Daniel's shoulder, just a little off-target. "Patience, brother."

Daniel growled and smacked at Jack's side, but he didn't push him away.


End file.
